Automatic mapping of possible forest operations: a decision support tool for forest planning

International audience; Accessing forest resources in mountainous areas is often difficult and sometimes even impossible. The aim of this work was to develop a numerical tool capable of automatically mapping the areas accessible to different specific harvesting systems. This tool uses different geographic information as inputs, such as digital elevation models, forest road networks, and forest topography. Additional optional geographic information can be provided, such as obstacles for a specific task or information about stand volume. The forest operations considered in this model were harvesting (manual and mechanical) and yarding for three kinds of equipment: skidder, forwarder, and cable crane. For each operation, the model loads the necessary inputs and maps the corresponding accessible area using different scripts coded in the open source Python language. Many outputs are provided for the given operation, allowing the user to geographically evaluate both accessibility and feasibility of forest operations over a large area. This tool provides forest managers useful data for planning forest operations. It enables users to quickly identify the different possible ways for extracting wood from a specific area and can sometimes suggest solutions in the most difficult cases. Inaccessible forests are also mapped, providing information valuable to stakeholders as they decide about the future of such forests.